the Lark and the Wren - Chapter Twenty-One

[kalinara]

So last time, Rune, Talaysen and Gwyna decided to start traveling together. They get some mules, a wagon, and some plot, by way of a would-be thief with an unfortunately phonetically represented stutter.

So let's see what happens next?



So we rejoin our heroes after they've finished packing up for their trip, new apprentice/plot point in tow.

So now that we know that the kid's not just a one-shot role, we get a name and description for him:

"Remember, speak slowly," he told the lad-no, not "the lad." The youngster had a name. Jonny Brede. He was going to have to remember that. A personable lad; thin and wiry, with a heart-shaped face and an unruly tangle of wavy brown hair. His eyes were the most attractive feature he had, probably because he tried to do most of his speaking with them rather than expose himself to ridicule. That stutter-the youngster must have gotten a lot of cruel teasing over it. "Speak very slowly. Take your time. I'm in no hurry, and neither are you, so take all the time you need."

Talaysen's rather enjoying the novelty of getting to travel while sitting on a bed, rather than trudging around on foot. He's never done this before, because he knows jack shit about horses, mules, harnessing and all that stuff. Rune knows a bit more, from her time at the inn, so she's up front, learning from Gwyna. Gwyna, of course, is the only one who actually knows what the fuck she's doing.

I'm kind of amused that the girls are the competent drivers here while the menfolk are useless. That said, the girls can still hear the conversation inside and comment as appropriate.

So Talaysen, gently, tries to extract poor Jonny's backstory, asking him the earliest thing he remembers.

In fact, Jonny doesn't remember a whole lot. He doesn't remember being small, or having siblings or friends. He remembers being sick for a long time, and he remembers his master. Talaysen urges him to start there, and it does seem like Talaysen's gentle coaching is having a positive effect on the poor kid's speech:

"I was r-r-real sick," Jonny said thoughtfully. "Fever; I w-w-was hot all the time. I was seeing things t-t-too. Men f-f-f-fighting, buildings b-b-burning. P-p-people yelling." He bit his lip. "Th-th-then I was at K-K-Kingsford, and M-M-Master was taking care of me."

...the phonetic spelling is still excruciating though.

Anyway, Jonny's Master was a man named Darian, and this is interesting because Talaysen actually does recognize the name. Apparently, before Talaysen left the guild, there'd been a minor scandal when Master Darian arrived. He was from a different country, a place called Birnam, and by all rights, he should have retired there. Instead, he came to Kingsford, demanding a place in the great Guildhall.

Apparently, the King of Birnam had been deposed by his brother. It was very messy, and Darian believed that he was being targeted by assassins. Talaysen remembers that there HAD been a boy with him: one that was sick with marsh fever. And apparently it was too cruel even for the Guild, to turn them out so that the kid would die on the road.

Talaysen also wonders if Ardis might know if one of the mages had healed the boy of it.

So he gets more of the story:

Once they settled in Kingsford, the boy's health improved while the master's health worsened. Jonny took care of him, when the others called Darian mad. Jonny insists that Darian wasn't mad. He just had trouble remembering.

This jogs more of Talaysen's memory: he remembers that the Guild had allowed the old man to keep his "apprentice", even though no one thought the boy was actually learning anything, because this freed up servants to tend to the other Masters. Talaysen even remembers thinking that he should do something for the boy, but it was just after that that he'd had his own confrontation with the Guild and stormed off. By that point, Talaysen had forgotten all about it.

I'm not going to lie. I actually really love this bit.

I've mentioned in my Dragonsinger reviews that one of the biggest problems with the plot was that Robinton had to be absolutely infallible. There was no point where he was allowed to be wrong. The Harper Hall couldn't be sexist, because that would be a failure in Robinton's leadership. The fact that Menolly is the only known female Harper is an unhappy coincidence. Robinton has actually WANTED female Harpers all along. et cetera and so forth.

And as an end result, Robinton actually ended up looking worse. Because there was no way to reconcile the challenges that Menolly faced with the kind of leader that Robinton was supposed to be. The only way any of the story worked is if we assume that Robinton completely floundered on the job and is unaware of anything that happens in the Hall that he's supposed to run. But of course, no one will ever acknowledge this in universe.

Now Talaysen is pretty clearly in the Robinton role. He's the leader of the Free Bards. He's a tremendously talented and influential musician. He's the mentor figure for our lead character and he's idealistic, sardonic and wise.

But he's not perfect, and here we see an example.

Talaysen was in a position of power and privilege. He was at least somewhat aware that there were problems in the Guild. He knew that this old man and this kid were being screwed over. He had the vague idea that he wanted to help. And then he got distracted. And as we'll learn, Jonny paid the price for that distraction.

But at no point reading this do we ever think that Talaysen is a bad person. Of course he's not. He's a good man, who means well, who left for very good reasons. He's human. He's fallible. And he dropped the ball here. And he knows that and acknowledges that. And now, he's going to do what he can to help this kid.

I'd rather read about a hundred Talaysens than one Robinton.

So anyway, that's where things get sad. Or at least as sad as it can be when you're sifting through a phonetically written stutter:

"Th-th-they left us alone until M-M-Master died. Th-th-then they said I had t-t-t-to l-l-l-leave." The stutter got worse as he grew more distressed.

"Why?" Talaysen asked.

"B-b-because I d-d-didn't have a M-M-Master any-m-m-more," he said, his eyes dark with anguish. "And th-th-they s-s-s-said it w-w-wasn't w-w-worth w-w-wasting t-t-time on a ha-ha-halfwit."

Seriously, Lackey, there's no reason for this. The kid stutters, we get it. This just feels like you're making fun of him too.

So anyway, Talaysen is furious, thinking that a stutter is curable, and even if it wasn't, most people don't stutter when singing. But Jonny had been a child and a foreigner, and no one spoke for him.

Talaysen tells Jonny that he's not a halfwit. He blames the Guild for being too lazy and foolish to see Jonny's worth. Since Jonny had come to Kingsford as acknowledged apprentice, he had the right to another Master when his own died. He also could have gone to any other Guild for help enforcing that right. But the Guild Masters had lied to him to prevent him from being able to do that.

Jonny is comforted a bit, but he points out that the Guild Masters were right when they said he couldn't sing or write music.

To which Talaysen points out that singing and writing music are skills, not just things you magically absorb by hanging around bards. Rune verifies that it took her two years to learn those things, and multiple Masters. Talaysen lays it all out for the poor kid: the Guild is made up of assholes and they saw that Jonny was unimportant, had no master, and no one even knew he was there, so they kicked him out.

It sounds like Master Darian's death was fairly recent. Jonny discloses how he worked at whatever job he could find. He worked at various hiring Faires from Kingsford to Kardown. But his last job had been with a herder, who sold his goats. The buyer already had staff. And once the Faire dried up, poor Jonny's prospects did too.

Gwyna backs that up. Apparently, the only real work available in Kardown after the Faire is with sheep, and shepherd's considered skilled labor. The only person who might be hired without experience is a Roma.

Talaysen asks if the kid learned a trade:

"G-g-got n-n-no one," he whispered. "And n-n-nothing. N-n-no g-g-good for anything. I w-w-was h-h-hungry, and I s-s-saw you b-b-buying th-th-things. I th-th-thought you w-w-wouldn't m-m-miss a c-c-copper or t-t-two."

Aw. Even with the terrible phonetic spelling, that's so sad.

Talaysen is indignant. Jonny plays the harp like he does, and he says that?! (But dude, he doesn't HAVE a harp!) He gives a nice speech though:

"You listen to me," he said fiercely. "You're among friends now. The Guild Bards may be fools, but the Free Bards aren't. I don't ever want to hear you say that you aren't good for anything. Not ever again. Is that understood?"

Aw.

Of course, he's basically freaking the poor kid out. But Jonny nods, wide-eyed. And the girls have basically already decided to adopt him, so Talaysen lays down the law.

"All right," Talaysen said, as much to them as to Jonny. "You're a Free Bard now. We'll undertake to do for you what the Guild should have. You, in turn, will have to abide by our rules. No theft, no troublemaking, no law-breaking. Treat us the way you would treat your family. When we play together, it's share and share alike, no holding anything back for yourself. Abide by those and we'll teach you everything we know, take you with us, with chores and profits shared alike. Will that do?"

For a moment, Talaysen feared the young man might burst into tears. But instead, he pulled himself up, looked each of them straight in the eyes, and said, with only a trace of a stammer, "Y-yes, sir. That w-will do. Y-you have my w-word on it."

Gwyna notes that he needs an instrument, and (while pretending to be focused on the horses) absently offers her harp, until he gets his own or she finds one she likes better. Talaysen also figures that he can start teaching him lute, since there are two of them. The drivers don't mind at all, and we learn that another neat advantage of wagons is that you can have music lessons while you ride.

So a few days later, they reach Ralenvale, and the Saint Brisa Faire. We're given a bit of background on the Faire: it's the first Harvest Faire that takes place during the autumn month. No one calls it that, though, because it's the very end of summer, and no one likes to be reminded that winter is around the corner. It has all of the usual Harvest Faire activities: vegetable competitions, races, baking and handicraft contests, and so on and so forth. Lots of trade in livestock. Very few Sires attend, except for gentleman farmers, but their chief servants did.

Talaysen's particularly looking forward to this Faire because some of Gwyna's kin are supposed to be there. There's someone he specifically wants to speak to, a horse-trader named Peregrine, who is also known to be a mage.

...it occurs to me that Peregrine's name actually violates the naming rules Lackey established earlier. Horse-traders should have horse names. Musicians have bird names!

Apparently, because this is a yearly hangout for Roma, they have their own traditional camp that's by a spring that's supposedly haunted. So no one bothers them.

There's much celebration when they arrive, even more so when Gwyna announces that Rune and Talaysen are "vanderie" or married, in the Roma language. I tried googling the word, but nothing useful came up. (The actual Romani word for married is very different.) So I'm assuming that Ms. Lackey created her own language for her fictional Roma people.

Anyway, there's a big party. Lots of dancing and singing, and socializing. Even Jonny's getting into the swing of things. Talaysen had been worried that the poor kid would bolt, but instead he's actually sticking around. He's quite popular with the young Roma girls, who are chattering at him in a mix of their own language and the common tongue. Jonny seems to be going along with it, smiling shyly. He's not talking, (embarrassed by the stutter), but no one seems to mind.

When things quite down, Peregrine just kind of appears. Lackey's really playing up the mysticism with this guy. I think to the point of stereotype. There's a fair bit of "there's no point looking for Peregrine, he'll find you" going on. Interestingly, Peregrine greets him as brother.

So they start talking, and it's interesting because apparently in fictional Roma culture, one doesn't just come straight out with any serious topic. If Talaysen had asked straight out about magic, Peregrine would have assumed that he wanted to talk about someone else.

This is the sort of thing that I like as a cultural note, but it makes me wish I knew more about real Roma people. I'd have an easier time picking out offensive stereotypes, I think.

So Talaysen starts by asking about strange music, and it cycles around eventually to being about magic. The long and the short of it is that Peregrine has known for a long time that Talaysen and a few others among the Free Bards are drukkera-rejek, or mages of music as Peregrine himself is.

Oh, that explains the name.

Both bards and elves use this kind of magic, and here Peregrine has a surprise guest: an elf! Talaysen is alarmed, considering his recent experience, but he trusts Peregrine and greets the elf respectfully. There's a bit of snarky banter about politeness and hospitality, and Talaysen appears to come on top. Peregrine says that he'd warned the elf not to match wits with a full bard, and the elf admits that he wouldn't want to match wits OR magic against Talaysen, even if he's new and raw to his power.

The elf bears a message: basically the High King of the Elves knows what happened and isn't angry with them. Instead, he sends some tokens: a pair of slender silver bracelets. Once worn, they can't be removed, but they'll mark Rune and Talaysen as having the High King's favor.

Talaysen puts his on and well, it's definitely magic. He thanks the elf, who reassures him that the king that he and Rune tangled with is just a greedy hothead, whose temper has been cooled by the High King. It's now safe for Rune and Talaysen to pass through a faerie ring, though they may get some polite invitations to play for a brief evening. They're famous now in the elf world, and people would want to hear their story.

The elf then vanishes very dramatically, and Peregrine wins my heart by snarking at his exit: Peregrine sighed, and shook his head. "Melodramatic, as ever," he commented. "Trust an elf to make a great show of simple leave-taking."

He and Talaysen though have a bit more to talk about, though, as Peregrine begins what sounds like a very involved lesson in magic. Sadly, the scene cuts away and we don't actually get to see it.

Instead we rejoin Rune and Gwyna at the party. Rune has noticed something pretty significant: Gwyna seems very into their new guest.

She doesn't really act that differently. But Rune's noticed that she hasn't really been paying attention to anyone else in camp. And when some of the young men came by to whisper invitations, she didn't take any of them up for it. We're told that Gwyna "had a reputation as a lusty lover that rivaled any of the male Free Bards" and Rune's never heard of her turning down EVERY invitation before. Especially when the invitations are coming from people that she's had fun with in the past.

I'm not sure Rune's take on Gwyna's experience is entirely consistent with what Gwyna's point of view established earlier, but I'm not going to harp on that. I definitely like how there's no judgment or stigma to her view of Gwyna. There's nothing wrong with having fun with other consenting individuals.

Anyway, Gwyna's been spending all her time with Jonny, who's starting to relax now. He's even talked a bit, and no one's made fun of his stutter.

Apparently, one of the things that Gwyna and Jonny have been doing over the past few days were collaborations. He's apparently got a knack for melody, and we're told that he'd set melodies to several of her lyrics that were "easily the equal of any of the younger Free Bards' efforts.". Gwyna is very appreciative. Apparently while words come easily to her, melody is much harder.

Jonny is complimentary back, noting that he can't find words like she can. Unfortunately, his stutter trips him up something awful when he tries to say what I'm guessing is "clerically inclined". Everyone gets a little nervous when he breaks it off with a curse, but he smiles feebly and compares his stuttering over the "cle" syllable to a kestrel.

Well, a kestrel IS a bird, and so the Roma declare that Jonny's named himself. He's now Master Kestrel!

Yay!

So the night continues. Gwyna's even coaxed him out to dance with her. Her suitors have apparently gotten a clue, and have given up. Rune's not sure if Gwyna is aware of her feelings or not. But she thinks that maybe "[t]he oldest game of man and maid" isn't just a game to Gwyna anymore.

At "moonset", folks start heading to bed. I admit, I had no idea that moonset was even a thing. Apparently, moonset tonight is about 3:27 a.m. So that gives us an idea of how long the party lasted. It's at this point that Talaysen appears. Rune asks where he's been, and notices the bracelet. He'd never been one for jewelry. He slips the matching one on her hand, which is a bit of a dick move, dude, and provides the explanation.

There's some cute banter, in which she asks what else he's done, aside from collecting jewelry that will get them condemned as elf-loving heretics, and he says nothing much, except learning things that will get them condemned as renegade mages instead.

Rune asks for an explanation and Talaysen provides her with one. Basically, he's gotten a very quick course in Bardic magic that he hasn't quite sorted out yet. Rune considers this and decides she's relieved, she doesn't think it's a great idea to go wandering around playing with magic when they don't know the first thing about it.

Their discussion is interrupted when the bracelets suddenly tighten. Talaysen realizes it's a warning: someone is using offensive magic.

There's a cry of anguish, and Rune sees a man basically engulfed in a pillar of flame. Arrows thock into the wood of a wagon, where Jonny had been sitting a few moments before. There are a few more shots before the Roma recover and counterattack. They appear to chase off the attackers, and everyone gets up from where they'd taken cover.

Peregrine's gotten an amulet from one of the attackers, and dramatically declares that this wasn't an accident. Both Rune and I have a similar response of "oh, really?" but hers is wittier.

Gwyna gets impatient with their banter: they know it wasn't an accident, and it's really obvious that Jonny was the target. But why?

They end up huddled in Peregrine's wagon, and it doesn't look like Jonny's doing all that well:

Jonny shivered inside one of Peregrine's blankets, a glass of hot brandy inside of him, his eyes telling them what his tongue couldn't. That he was frightened-that was easy to understand. They were all frightened. But Jonny was terrified, so petrified with fear that he balanced on a very thin rope of sanity, with an abyss on either side of him.

It comes out that this wasn't the first such attack. And it probably won't be the last. Jonny doesn't know why they're after him, but Peregrine thinks he has a way to find out. But it's definitely not going to be fun. And on this mild cliffhanger, the chapter ends.

Hello Plot, my old friend. What do you have for us this time?